At the War

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 17, 14 December 1916, Page 7

At the War

NO. iII.—CORROBORATION. (By C.S.K.) Just after I had finished writing about "reserve energy," I started reading the "Daily Telegraph" or' September 23rd (current date), end almost at once lighted on the following passage in an article by Phillip Gibbs, which I take to be corroborative ! n some measure of what I said :

"Another dark, wet day, filled with grey mist, and rainstorms and mud. lip/in the lines British soldiers and Germans lie near each other in shell craters, waist high in water. The rain is slashing upon them, and it is cold. But though gunners cannot see-, nor airmen fly, the bombardment goes on, and all day long there has been the dull crashing of heavy shells, on both sides deep and sullen boomings through the white fog of this foul dav. . . I have written the Lord knows how many thousands of words about this abominable war since the first shot was fired, and for fifteen months' and more have been trying to picture as closely as possible the life of our soldiers in action, but I am conscious that all I have written has given but a vague, dim, far-off glimpse of the character, sufferings and valour of our men. How is it possible r o show these things truly, to make my readers understand something of the truth when 1 cannot understand myself, but can only guess and grope at the qualities which them do the things they do? Take our last great day of battle—September 15—there were troops of many different types engaged in its fighting. Canadians. New Zealanders, Scots, Irish and English of many countries. One would 'expect to find differences mong these men, to find some harder than others ox softer than others, battalions hein and there who flinched before tlie storm and those frightful shells wlvch open great chasms in the earth. But on Friday the courage of all those men was of one quality, and a man would be a liar who said that one set of men were less brave than another." j A SCALE OF PAY. J Usually men stick up for their own branch of tb,e_ service, and can see no 'yirtue in jtny-j.other, but an exception turned up the other-day in the "person of an artilleryman who lies opposite me. He was "maintaining with no little heat" the excellencies of the gunners, and spoke of the long years of training one has to undergo before he can be regarded as efficient. Somebody mentioned the claims of the infantry, and the first speaker then drew up the following scale, of pay: "If I was running this dreadful war, I would give the men who do duty in the first line of trenches £1 a day, artillery 10s; forward transport and ammunition column men 6s to Bs, depot and dump scouts Is a day, and policemen—l'd make them pay for their A STRATFORD MAN.

I In certain respects, it is an unpleasant feature of the Army that one gets separated from his friends from his district, and'in certain cases, even from'-the 4 men with whom h&iitMs undergone training; but to some extent it is a pleasant feature that one meets a great variety of folk, and ff he does stumble occasionally on uncongenial people, he knows that the companionship will not he for ever. In hospital these changes of comrades are more than usually frequent. This . did not apply in the case of my Penin--1 sula illness, because everybody in the tent at Lemnos had the same disease, contracted about the same time, and would consequently be kept together until discharge. The mixed mob we were can be guessed from the follow- | ing list, run up from memory: Two 1 Manchester Regt., one Royal Naval 1 Auxiliary Service (mine-sweeper) one Royal Navy leading seamen, Australian Artillery, British A.S.C.. Motor ' Transport, Royal Garrison Artillery, Royal Marine Light Infantry, one -N.Z. I Medical Corps, one Royal Scots Fusilier, and one King's Own Scottish Bor- | derers. Naturally we all had a lot of ' notes to compare, and tales to tell—iof which there was nobody to check 'the veracity, each man being from a 'different part of the field of operations or in a different branch. When we moved to Alexandria, we still kept together. We were not a particularly well-assorted mob, but no doubt we continued in company on the assumption that if we changed companions it might be for the worse. On my present trip, I set off in company with 'Harold Lister, of Taranaki, but lose him on the road. At the casualty 'clearing station I was among British soldiers, at Rouen, there were British I and many Canadians and only a very few New Zealanders, on the hospital ship my companions were Guards, and now I am among a crowd of Third Bri- ! gade New Zealanders from all pans of itlio country. Coming in here I lay for a minute beside an Bth Company Second Brigade man I knew, but he iwas taken off somewhere else. And the gentlemen who arc here now will gradually fade away. They are badly enough wounded, but will be able m walk long before 1 will, and another crowd will probably come along, 11 they do, perhaps I shall be able to do for them what the present chaps have done for me. This is the first bone I have ever had broken, and it has surprised me just now useless the | hands become when the thigh '.s broken.

I All of which is merely introductory to the fact that the other clny 1 mot • an elderly lady named 1 think) .Miss Pratt. She was on duty in the ward, and for some reason took my name, etc. Finding I came from Stratford, she told me she had been there once—on a visit to a niacc of hers who was

the wife of the editor of one of tho Stratford papers (his naruo lias escape 1 me). She was pleased to own* with me that Stratford was a fine place i.) live in. On the same day I loZiewed acquaintance with one Kane, who was, I believe, the Whangamomona County Council's head roadman, and who's here with a painful, but not serious, wound in the arm.

A PARADOXICAL PROCEEDING. Part of the daily operation of making me perfectly comfortable is for a person to heave on a couple of straps attached to my foot and to tie same to the foot of the bed at full tension. This is the dinkum leg-pulling—no kid about it. SOLDIERS' TALK. I All soldiers are not the same exactly, but all are alike in being human beings, and therefore it is highly probable that there are some characteristics common to all, though such common characteristics are most likely those attaching generally to human , beings more than particularly to sotU- : iers. One characteristic .1 have no-

ticed is that soldiers talk little about soldiering. There is some talk of how the army should be run and frequent long grumbles about food, work, etc; but when the soldier is really enjoying himself he is talking of things quite separate from the prefession of arms. In the army I have absorbed quite a lot of agricultural information which came out in conversation between men. Quite beyond me was a discussion on the best method of stacking stooks on a waggon, as also was a lecture by a Scotsman on the best method of building a hay-stack. I went to sleep before a certain mob finished deciding whether one six-horse team or two three-horse teams would do the most work. All the trades in the world are discussed, and there is not a little scandal vended. Here the chaps have, of course, been talking mostly about what happened on NewZealand's Friday, but already that subject is getting worn out, and a return is being made to very general subjects. This afternoon the other side of the ward failed to come to a decision as to the correct spelling of the word "backsheesh."